Thursday, June 21, 2007

Soldier's Wife Faces Deportation

[posted by Callimachus]

John Kerry is absolutely right about this:

"Under no condition should our country ever deport the spouse of a soldier who is currently serving in uniform abroad."

Unfortunately, the woman in question is enduring her tragedy while being strung up simultaneously in two of the biggest red-tape traps in human history: The U.S. military and the U.S. immigration authorities.

This is nothing new; I've found similar stories in the official records of the families of Irish immigrant volunteers in the Union army in the American Civil War. It's nothing new, but it's time for it to stop.

I expect sanity and patriotism to show up soon in this case, and with their twin swords hack this Gordian knot. So this woman can be free of her lesser anxiety while she endures the greater.

The media and the anti-war bloggers do well to call attention to such cases, the better to resolve them with due speed. Let's hope they also notice and praise the resolution, if and when it comes, which would be the other half of the job.